Welcome to our weekly digest of all that’s happening in London’s food and drink scene.
Inside this week: cereal, sliders and Sargeant
Cereal sequel
The second Cereal Killer Café opens today in Camden around six months after twins Alan and Gary Keery launched the original on Brick Lane. The new site, which is in the Stables Market, will offer the same menu of cereals, milks and Pop-Tarts as before and this time will offer takeaway too. On 22 May they’re teaming up with soya milk brand Alpro to host a breakfast-time rave with music from DJ Yoda — tickets cost £10.
Porridge
There’s more good news for breakfast fans today — the Porridge Café is back. After a two-week stint in Shoreditch earlier this year, it will now be serving its range of sweet and savoury porridges — made with grains such as barley, buckwheat, quinoa and rye as well as oats — at Victoria station for a month. It’s on Terminus Place near the bus stops, but from the looks of Twitter people aren’t finding it oatso simple to locate. See what we thought when we visited the original.
Slider Decider
The list of chefs who will take part in this year’s Slider Decider competition has been announced. The annual cook-off — which takes place on 4 June at The Gun in Docklands this year — will see 15 top restaurant chefs compete to make the best slider. Contestants include Tom Moxon from Bone Daddies who’ll be creating a ramen slider with a bun made from noodles; Nanban’s Tim Anderson who has devised a chuck steak and chicken liver patty and will also be incorporating Quavers; and Dave Lee from Ember Yard who will make a smoked duck neck and morcilla burger with a crispy egg yolk. Tickets are available now from The Gun and cost £20 for two sliders, a beer and a taste of all the buns in the running.
Major Sargeant
London’s restaurant scene is getting a major dose of Mark Sargeant. The chef — who was Ramsay’s right hand man before going his own way — has only just taken over the reins at Trafalgar Square restaurant The Strand Dining Rooms and now he’s also revealed plans for a brasserie in Soho. Morden & Lea will launch on Wardour Street next month serving British seasonal dishes such as pot-roast loin of pork, anchovy mayonnaise and pickled summer vegetables, and grilled Cornish mullet with spelt, mussels and bok choy. There will also be a cocktail bar upstairs. In case you were wondering, the name doesn’t reference places in north and south London where you end up after falling asleep on the night bus, but rather 17th century cartographers Robert Morden and Philip Lea, who were the first to map the area we now call Soho.
Larder goes large
The duo behind prominent London supperclub The Secret Larder are opening a permanent restaurant site this summer. James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy will launch Pidgin in a yet-to-be-disclosed site in Hackney, serving set four-course menus which change every week — in order to be a little bit like their supperclub. The pair won’t be doing all the cooking themselves and have hired a chef with a background at several London restaurants to take the helm (who this is will be revealed in due course). We see why their supperclub was secret now…
New openings
Along with the breakfast-themed spots mentioned above, this week has seen the opening of eponymous Spanish restaurant José Pizarro in Broadgate, The Black Penny café and coffee shop in Covent Garden, and Lonzo bakery and wine bar in London Fields from the team behind nearby Lardo. Ramsay has also transformed his Royal Hospital Road restaurant Foxtrot Oscar into a third branch of Maze Grill, and Taberna do Mercado — the new restaurant from Chiltern Firehouse chef Nuno Mendes — is now officially open after a week on soft-launch.
Tomorrow sees the launch of Middle Eastern restaurant Sesame in Covent Garden, brought about by one of the founders of Ottolenghi. 18 May marks the launch of the sixth branch of Polpo in Chelsea; on 19 May Daylesford will launch a farmshop and café just off Marylebone High Street; and next Wednesday (20) Shake Shack arrives in Westfield Stratford while Soho dim sum restaurant Yauatcha opens a sister site in Broadgate.
Also opening officially next week is Joe’s Oriental Diner at The Laundry in London Fields, a new home for Scott Hallsworth’s restaurant which has upped sticks from its original Chelsea base.
Also see:
The Best Food And Drink In London — recommendations of where to enjoy the capital’s top food and drink, categorised by cuisine, food type and more.
New Restaurant Reviews — our views on London’s latest openings.
More food and drink on Londonist.
